Meet The Startup That's Going To Make Eggs (Yes, Eggs) Obsolete

If there's one thing Silicon Valley is doing better than anywhere
else right now, it's optimism.

The success of companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon,
Instagram, Nest, Tesla, and others, have pushed people in the
Valley to start trying things outside of the typical purview of
the Valley.

San Francisco-based Hampton Creek is one of those companies. It's
trying to replace eggs with a plant-based substitute that's
cheaper, but just as tasty and just as good for you. It's backed
by Bill Gates, Peter Thiel (who co-founded PayPal, was an early
investor in Facebook), and Khosla Ventures.

When I
first heard the idea I scoffed because eggs are plentiful and
cheap. You can buy vegetarian fed, free range eggs, so it's not a
huge ethical consideration. This seemed like another Silicon
Valley company trying to find a solution where there is no
problem.

After I made some snarky comment on Twitter, Hampton Creek
reached out to chat. As a former vegan I was intrigued, so I met
with the company's CEO (and current vegan) Josh Tetrick at our
office.

Tetrick quickly changed my mind.

I asked him about readily available cage-free eggs. He said,
"1.8 trillion eggs are laid, 99% come from these places,"
pointing to a photo of chickens in cages, "In America, 1/3 of
them end up in mayo, and muffins and things like
that, we absolutely
want to create a model that ends this system because we're
cheaper and better."

In other words, only a sliver
of the eggs consumed in the world come from free-range, fairly
treated chickens.

Optimism from a Silicon Valley startup can sound like arrogance,
but with Tetrick it sounded like confidence.

His company has a research and
development team filled with biochemists. "These people
know nothingabout food. They know about protein
structure," says Tetrick. They've looked at 1,500 plants on a
molecular level. They then break down the proteins in those
plants to replicate what eggs can do.

The benefit of this approach is
that Hampton Creek can be iterative. So, it can make a plant-based mayonnaise
1.0, then mayo 2.0, and so on, just like Apple does with iPhone
software.

Animal products like eggs, on
the other hand, Tetrick notes, are what they are: "They're
good, but they're not getting any better, there's not an
iterative process."

Right now, Hampton Creek sells
plain mayo. Chipotle and sriracha flavors are coming in 2014. All
three are good. I tried them on pretzels. It also sells an edible
cookie dough, which is also tasty. Sure, you could eat raw cookie
dough with eggs in it, but it's risky because of
salmonella.

Its mayo is used for pre-made
chicken and tuna salad in some Whole Foods. "It has nothing
to do with tasting vegan, or being vegan, it just has to do with
being a good mayo," says Tetrick.

Hampton Creek

He's also focused on making his product low-cost. "We have
no interest in being looked at as a premium product, we always
want to undercut the competition." He says his egg substitute is
48% cheaper than eggs. He also says he's profitable at current
prices.

As for why Silicon Valley
investors are interested in Hampton Creek, Tetrick says,
"they look at the inefficiency of [the egg industry], it's
like, I'm investing in iPhone technology where I can monitor my
heart rate, and these f--king eggs are coming from rusty cages
with chickens shitting all over each other?"

He adds, "For some reason, innovation decided to pass
food along the side of the road. And yet there is this incredible
innovation — at least in some part — in energy, in software, in
mobile, across the board, and we're still getting our eggs from
chickens crammed in rusty cages? Savvy investors like Bill Gates,
Peter Thiel, and Vinod Khosla look at this and they think it's
f--king bizarre. They think it's antiquated 19th century
technology for a world that requires more."

Hampton's next major product
under development is going to be its real game changer. It is
working on making an egg substitute that scrambles up just like
normal eggs. It's working on the taste of the scrambled egg right
now. "We're going to get there," says Tetrick.

Once that happens, it's a major shift for Hampton Creek.

"For what ever reason our society has gotten stuck on this
notion of animal protein the paradigm by which we do things," he
says. "Selecting plant proteins isn't a vegan thing, it can be,
let's save some money and demolish a rotting industry
thing."

His big vision is to get his Dad, a non-vegan, to not feel
weird about picking a plant-based egg: "I want my dad
to walk into Piggly Wiggly and see a dozen eggs for $1.50 and see
ours for $0.49 and say, 'Give me that.'"